Moon Drabbles
by Bellephont17
Summary: A collection of drabbles on those parts Rob left to our imaginations
1. Pale Gold and Promises

He laid on his side and watched her sleep. Her black curls fell over her pale golden face. She looked like a fallen angel. Reaching out a hand broad and smooth despite millennia of use, he brushed the raven coils out of her closed eyes. Her lids fluttered and she rolled over on the pallet, her back suddenly pressed against his chest and stomach, her curled spine melding with his concave abdomen.

"Cyrilla."

He stood within breathing distance of the evilly black cloud of ash that covered the beautiful city. People pushed and shoved him in a panic to get away, yet still he held his ground, stunned, staring, hands open and hanging at his sides. She hadn't gotten out. He had known she wouldn't, but he hadn't gone back for her. He hadn't stayed. He could have been embalmed in stone with her, but he had been afraid.

"Next time," he vowed.

Next time he found love, he wouldn't run, no matter what the circumstances.


	2. Not For Any Reason pt 1

The smell of burning metal lingered in his nostrils, along with the stench of scorched flesh. His skin stung in a hundred places from the cuts and scrapes and minor burns he had contracted attempting to get out of the trailer. His heart ached even more, and for a loss greater than that of blood.

Niko sat on the cool grass and stared up at the night sky, the night sky that had opened up and swallowed his brother, along with the creatures that took him. Running his fingers through his long blond hair, he swallowed down the panic and tried to still the shivering.

Glancing at the car, he briefly considered driving away from the wreckage of his home and his past life, including both members of his family. But he couldn't make his knees support him even that small distance, and the thought of leaving the premises made him feel sick to the pit of his stomach. What would happen when Cal came back and found him gone?

And Cal would come back. That wasn't even a question as far as Niko was concerned.


	3. Not For Any Reason pt 2

A day later, hunger pangs were wrenching his gut. He went to the car and opened the door to the back seat, where he had stowed all the provisions for the journey. The black garbage bag full of Cal's clothes sat slumped like a dead, abandoned thing against the far window. Forgetting his hunger, Niko crawled across the tattered suitcases and dragged open the tied mouth of the bag of clothes. The sleeve of Cal's purple sweatshirt met his eyes. The sight of it wrenched a groan from him and he flopped face down on the bag, breathing in the scent of his brother.

When he woke up, he realized that daylight had faded once again and the car was once again enveloped in darkness. A crick in his neck, Niko sprang out of the car and looked up at the sky through the trees. It gleamed with innocent stars – they watched him like impassive eyes.

"_Bring him back, you bastards_!" he shouted hoarsely at it. "_Bring my brother back_!"

Slamming the car door, he began beating it with his bare fists and booted feet. Ignoring his bashed and bleeding knuckles, he reveled in the feeling of taking his anger out on something, anything. He delighted in the dents he made in the old chassis and the throbbing pain it ignited in his hands.

It was punishment. He had failed in his self-appointed task of protector.


	4. Coming Back

Whoever he was, he had his hands on me and that wasn't good. Hot hands. Hot meant hell and hands meant pulling and pushing and grabbing. And I'd be damned if I was going to be pulled, pushed, or grabbed back to hot hell.

I bit his arm. My teeth sank through the skin and drew blood. The taste of it, coppery and warm and red, sent bolts of panic into my brain. It tasted like Tumulus – it _tasted _like _them_. Wrenching away, I threw myself back, only to be caught by the forearms and shaken.

"Wake up, Cal!_ Cal_!" Whoever it was shook me, hard. It hurt. My head snapped back, the throbbing pain in my skull spiking.

"Let go of me . . ." I fought violently, as best as I knew how, scratching at the face and twisting in the hands that gripped my bare arms, hands that at any moment would turn to claws and drag me back. I had just escaped – I wasn't about to go back. Not now, not ever.

"Cal, _please_, calm down!"

"Damn you, bastard, I'm not going back," I choked.

The shaking wouldn't stop, not so long as I kept struggling. I couldn't keep it up for much longer anyway – breaking through the gateway had taken just about every last scrap of strength I had left in me – which wasn't freaking much.

Finally, my muscles simply refused to work any longer and I crumpled against the chest of the person gripping me. The shaking stopped instantly, which was a relief, and I tensed violently as arms – strong and unrelenting – circled me and crushed me closer.

"Don't . . ." I whispered, my cracked lips catching on the knit of a sweater. A strangely familiar-smelling sweater. Grendels didn't wear sweaters.

"Cal."

"Can't . . ."

"_Cal._" There were tears in the voice. That knocked a little sense into me. Grendels didn't cry. Nothing in Tumulus cried. Except me. "Cal, it's alright, you're back. You're home. You're okay. I'm here." The words were repeated over and over again, like the words to a lullaby whose melody had been forgotten. The human language was strange to my ears, and strangely comforting. So was the voice. Familiar.

I felt myself being rocked back and forth. Definitely not Grendel style. Despite the panic still nagging at the back of my skull, I allowed myself to relax into the swaying movement. I couldn't help it – I was too damn tired. I concentrated on breathing. Breathing cool air that didn't burn my lungs with every intake. Breathing air scented with human sweat and human skin.

I started to cry, dry hacking sobs that burst painfully from a throat raw from screaming. The arms tightened, and the movement freaked me out again. Suddenly they morphed into heavy iron chains and the sinewy pale limbs of the Grendels . . . Throwing myself backwards, I broke free from the grip and fell onto the grass. "Not again!" I screamed. "Not again!"

And then the face entered my blurred vision and struck something inside of me. Heart, soul, spirit, don't know what – but whatever it damn was suddenly exploded with forgotten memories. They burst out of wherever they had been stored safely away from the Grendels, bringing with them a sense of warmth despite the frigid chill of night air against my bare skin.

"Nik," I blurted, eyes going wide. "Nik! Niko, Sophia, Cal, Caliban, Leandros, _Nik_." All the names from my previous life trickled through my cracked lips in a stream. Sophia was my mother, I was Caliban. And Niko – Niko was . . . "Here."

"Yes, yes, I'm here. You're here." He dragged me up from my prostrate position and pressed me against him.

Some kind of half-realized relief flooded through me. I didn't remember much, not yet. I could feel most of my memories bubbling just under the surface of my consciousness, on the brink of revealing themselves. But at the moment I didn't need to know what year it was, how old I was, where we lived, where my life had left off . . . Shit, I knew what I needed to know. I knew Niko.

I reached my arms over his shoulders and grabbed at the back of his shirt, clinging to the tattered handfuls of it for dear life, soaking in the soft warmth of another human body and the sound of another human voice. "We're both here and it's alright now."


	5. Peace and Love

Niko came home with a black eye and dried blood crusting his upper lip. The injuries made his sixteen-year-old face look harder and older. I didn't like it – not one damn bit. Anger boiled in my belly and I marched over to my brother to stare him in the sheepish face.

"Who did that to you?" I demanded heatedly. I didn't have any illusions about my abilities in my physical strength – I was a scrawny twelve-year-old and no amount of righteous indignation was going to result in a sudden knack for ass-kicking my brother's no doubt older and stronger attacker. But hell if that didn't mean I wasn't planning on trying.

Niko shrugged. I could have predicted it, the twitch of the shoulder and the flop of pale hair. Damn, that eye looked painful. "No one of consequence," he muttered, heading for the small freezer. He rummaged around for a minute and emerged with an ice pack pressed to the side of his face.

I folded my arms, my anger turning rapidly into frustration with my elder brother's damn pacifist ways. "Shit, I'll bet you didn't even fight back."

Niko grimaced. "The word, Cal, the word again."

I rolled my eyes. If only he knew how often those kinds of words cropped up in my mental processes. "You didn't answer the question," I pressed on doggedly, delighting in acting the part of concerned big brother. "Did you fight back or didn't you?"

"No, I did not," Niko said calmly. "You know I hate violence, Cal."

"You're not exactly the picture of peace and love right now, are you?" I demanded.

Niko gave me a wry look from under the ice pack but didn't answer. I threw my hands in the air and stomped out of the trailer in a huff, leaving my big softy brother nursing his battle wounds. It worried me sometimes, it truly damn did. How would Niko ever protect himself if there was ever a time he didn't have me around to fight for him? That kid really needed to learn how to defend himself.


End file.
